Blog For Iowa

Are we some third world country where our political system is so screwed up that we can’t feed our own populace? Is our capitalist system so immoral that we will allow our own fellow citizens to starve while billionaires get trillions in tax cuts to fund their amoral and lavish lifestyles? Sure looks like it. Some president a few years back saw countries like this and called them shit hole countries.

It is almost unbelievable that as a baby boomer I have seen my country go from the savior of the world and the guardian of democracy to a country that refuses to feed its own people because They don’t pass some arbitrary set of rules. Yet our leaders – at least on the extreme right – see it as imperative to give more and more to the people who need it least.

Bernie Sanders speaks on Trump’s totalitarianism  – 20 minutes:

Thom Hartmann’s daily newsletter from Wednesday discussed many aspects of the SNAP (formerly called food stamps) program, including some interesting history. Food stamps were not created just to feed the poor, but to also weave some economic magic that would spread money around to various groups so many groups would be helped through the program not just one focus group. 

“When FDR created the food stamp program in 1938, it had three main purposes. The first was to generate Keynesian “from the bottom up” financial activity by giving government money to retailers, who would then circulate it in, and thus stimulate, local economies. The second was to provide a market for struggling farmers, millions of whom were then facing bankruptcy. And the third was to ameliorate hunger among America’s poor.

Today, the SNAP program still accomplishes the goals of helping out farmers, supporting local food stores, and reducing hunger among America’s poor, but about a third of the program has also become a way of insuring that America’s morbidly rich billionaires get even richer on the taxpayer’s dime.

And it’s not just SNAP: you could make the same argument for much of Medicaid and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program (TANF times-out at 5 years).”

So as you can see, when Republicans screw those getting SNAP aid – and they gloat about it – they are in effect gutting local infrastructures. An extra effect will most certainly be that  small crimes like petty theft will increase as people get really hungry.

Paul Krugman had some thoughts that I shared last week, but do deserve a reiteration today. Being an economist, Krugman elucidates why the SNAP program is so much more than just a program to feed the needy. As first noted – starving the poor is a POLITICAL decision!  

Here are four things you should know about the imminent hunger games. 

• This is a political decision — specifically, a Republican decision 

• The pain from lost food aid will, if anything, hurt Republican voters worse than Democrats 

• Despite what Republicans believe, SNAP recipients aren’t malingerers 

• Food stamps are an investment in the future

Despite the government shutdown, the SNAP program isn’t out of money. In fact, it has $5 billion in contingency funds, intended as a reserve to be tapped in emergencies. And if the imminent cutoff of crucial food aid for 40 million people isn’t an emergency, what is? The Department of Agriculture, which runs the program, also has the ability to maintain funding for a while by shifting other funds around. But Donald Trump has — quite possibly illegally — told the department not to tap those funds.

Furthermore, the Republican majority in the Senate could maintain aid by waiving the filibuster on this issue. They have done this on other issues — for example, to roll back California’s electric vehicle standard. But for today’s Republican Party, blocking green energy is more important than keeping 40 million Americans from going hungry.

Furthermore, passing legislation to keep food aid flowing would require that Mike Johnson, the speaker, call the House back into session – something which he refuses to do. While we don’t know for sure the reason behind Johnson’s refusal, there is widespread speculation that it’s to avoid swearing in the newly elected Arizona congresswoman Adelina Grijalva, who would supply the crucial vote needed to force an overall vote on releasing the Epstein files. It sounds crazy to say that Republicans are making children go hungry to protect pedophiles, but it’s actually a reasonable interpretation of the situation.

From Facebook:

“The failure of SNAP payments symbolizes a deeper national sickness: a society that has never fully committed to economic justice because it has never fully confronted the roots of inequality. 

Feeding the poor is not charity—it is a test of civilization.”

Locally, the country’s least popular governor shows her ass to Iowans and Iowa’s needy by donating a whole million dollars to food aid. Given that Iowa has a quarter of a million on SNAP that is a whole $4 per SNAP recipient. $4 FREAKING DOLLARS! And that ‘donation’ is only given if the food banks can match those dollars. So that is up to a million dollars and only then if that money is matched. What a deal!

Even with the donation match that is a whole $8 per person. That don’t buy much these days. Ever wonder why Reynolds is so disliked? Remember that she and her Republican buddies have busted the state coffers by funneling money to private schools in Iowa. Reynolds values are so out of whack.

I found this campaign video from a Democratic candidate in Minnesota which shows how SNAP can affect lives: (2.5 minutes) Note: Stewartville is between Rochester and Austin